November 23, 2023 - BusinessWest

Dakin Humane Society Meets Rapidly Growing Needs

By Joseph Bednar November 23, 2023

Cover Story

Creature Comforts

Executive Director Meg Talbert
Photo by Danielle Cookish

The statistics, frankly, are striking.

In 2021, Dakin Humane Society cared for 2,740 animals; in 2022, that number was 3,071.

The 2023 figure is 4,124 — and that’s just through mid-November.

“Our intake has been up nearly 60% over the past year,” said Meg Talbert, Dakin’s executive director, noting that the upward trend is due to several factors, but especially economic trends that have made everything less affordable for families, pets being no exception.

“Right now, people are being impacted by housing availability, housing loss, the high cost of living,” she said. “So they’re making some choices about their pets and coming to Dakin for help when they can no longer care for their pets.”

But Dakin has been in the animal-saving business in Springfield for almost 55 years and isn’t stopping now.

“We have an incredible community here in our region, people that want to adopt, people that want to help those animals and provide them new homes,” Talbert told BusinessWest. “So, from the sadness and loss we have to support people through comes the joy of making new adoptions and finding those animals new homes.”

“Right now, people are being impacted by housing availability, housing loss, the high cost of living. So they’re making some choices about their pets and coming to Dakin for help when they can no longer care for their pets.”

Yet, Dakin isn’t only rehoming dogs and cats; it has developed an array of services — from low-cost spay and neuter services to a pet-supply thrift shop — designed to help people struggling economically to keep their beloved animals in their homes.

“Many people know Dakin for having adopted an animal from us, coming in and getting a cat or a dog or a small animal from us throughout the years,” she said. “But we’re doing incredible work with our communities. About a year and a half ago, we opened our pet health center, which is a new, accessible veterinary-care clinic. We have programs like our kitten street team that does trap-neuter-return in the community. We have a pet food bank for community residents who might be going through some economic struggles, and they need some help with food for their pets.

“So we’re just at a place of growth,” she continued, “and I think what we’re finding at Dakin — and what we try to message with people — is we really are in the human-service business as well as the animal-welfare business, supporting people and their pets through all sorts of highs and lows in their lives.”

Talbert is no stranger to the nonprofit-management world, serving most recently as chief Development officer for Way Finders, a housing and human-services agency, before landing at Dakin in October 2022. Before Way Finders, she was executive director of Helping Hands: Monkey Helpers, a national service-animal organization founded to provide in-home assistance to people living with spinal-cord injury or other mobility impairments that now focuses on providing lifelong care for the animals in retirement.

Dakin staff member Eliza Fischer greets a patient at a recent parvovirus vaccine clinic.
Photo by Danielle Cookish

In those roles and her current one, she has led with a specific philosophy.

“Understanding the community, understanding people, being compassionate, listening to people, and having an open heart are incredibly important,” she said. “And that’s what we have here: the staff, the volunteers, the people that show up to Dakin every day are just incredible individuals who support not only the animals in our community, but the people as well.”

Some people, she added, are surprised to learn that Dakin also offers a support group for people dealing with pet loss — a universal experience for anyone who has opened their home (and heart) to an animal.

“That’s been an incredible resource,” she said. “Everything is online. It’s a free service for people to come and attend if they’ve lost a pet. We have people from all over the country — actually, other countries, too — dialing in for that. It’s a relatively new service for us, but it’s something that people have really appreciated; they’ve found comfort through speaking with people about their loss.”

Tails of Triumph

With the need to find homes for animals — Dakin handles cats, dogs, and even small animals like rabbits and guinea pigs — so heightened these days amid limited space and resources, Talbert stressed the multiple benefits of adoption.

“People who are considering adoption know that they’re really saving two lives: they’re saving or improving the life of the animal, bringing them into a new home, and they’re also making room for the next animal that needs to come in with us for care and adoption. So it’s such an important choice that people make when they’re considering bringing a pet into their home.”

Potential adopters can always visit Dakin’s website, dakinhumane.org, to check out animals who need homes; the selection changes every day. And it helps that the shelter is now open for walk-in visits Tuesday through Saturday from 12:30 to 3 p.m.; during the pandemic, adoptions were by appointment only.

“So we want to welcome people to come by, take a look, and talk to our staff, who are just amazing resources,” Talbert said. “They know all of these animals individually. They know how to make a great match for every individual home.”

She understands that many people don’t consider shelter adoption as a first choice, preferring, for any number of reasons, to buy pets through breeders or stores. And she tries to dispel some of the hesitancy families feel about rescuing an animal.

“They need to know that these animals have gone through a routine health check. All of our animals will be spayed and neutered prior to their adoption. And we know all about them. If they have any particular health concerns that have been identified upon intake, we certainly talk about that with a potential adopter.

“We really are in the human-service business as well as the animal-welfare business, supporting people and their pets through all sorts of highs and lows in their lives.”

“We have animals of all ages as well,” she continued. “People that are interested in a kitten or a puppy can find one here, but we have a lot of middle-aged dogs, some older dogs that need care. We have a lot of people whose hearts really go out to the older animals that come in, and they need a special type of care for their lives. So we have adopters of all types that come to us.”

She appreciates everyone who feels moved to adopt a pet at Dakin.

From left, Medical Director Dr. Rebecca Carroll with Dakin staff members Lorie Benware and Betsy Bernard during a parvovirus vaccine clinic.
Photo by Danielle Cookish

“I always joke that, every time people come in, they’re like, ‘my wife is going to kill me if I bring home an animal,’” she said, but they’re moved to adopt one anyway. “We had a fire alarm go off a few months ago; we didn’t have any trouble, just a false alarm. One of the firemen said, ‘I’m thinking about adopting a cat or a kitten.’ I said, ‘come on back.’ And he did. He came back, and he adopted.”

Those stories are gratifying to the staff and volunteers who work at Dakin, Talbert said, but so is the day-to-day care they provide to animals and the support they offer to families who want desperately to hang onto their own pets.

“It’s just a great place to be. I think it’s an incredible organization,” she told BusinessWest. “Walking through these doors and meeting our staff and volunteers will warm your heart. We love showing off what we do and teaching people people about the needs in the community and how they can get involved in helping not only the pets, but the people as well.”

That staff currently totals about 60, supported by more than 300 volunteers. “There’s a variety of different ways to get involved as a volunteer. Some people come in to help with daily animal care and walking dogs and enrichment programs for the animals while they’re here in the adoption center. Some people help us with office work and help our development team and our marketing team do their work.”

And that’s not all. Other volunteers are part of the morning wake-up crew, and others come in for enrichment activities with the cats in the afternoon. Some work in the thrift shop or at events, and others volunteer only on weekends. “You have people that come in every Sunday to walk dogs, and that’s meaningful to them.”

Dakin also maintains a wide network of foster homes who take care of animals prior to adoption, Talbert said, noting that more than 60% of the animals the organization adopted out last year spent time in foster care.

“We have a lot of people whose hearts really go out to the older animals that come in, and they need a special type of care for their lives.”

“What an amazing difference that makes for those pets to have that home environment. We’re learning a lot about them. We’re learning if they can get along with other pets, how they’re doing on their housetraining, obedience skills, all those things. So our foster caregivers are an incredible asset,” she said. “Our foster families also help with our marketing of animals because they’re taking photos, they’re taking videos, they’re telling fun

stories about their interactions with their foster pets.”

Dakin is always looking for more foster families, she added. “It doesn’t need to be a terribly long-term commitment. Some people say, ‘you know, gosh, I only have a one-month window that I can foster.’ We will work with anybody in whatever situation and try to make a good match.”

Ruff Times

Dakin is far from alone in dealing with an uptick in need. Shelters across the country, especially down south, have been overrun, and many have had to euthanize more adoptable animals than ever. Compounding the issue is a shortage of veterinary professionals to run much-needed spay and neuter clinics.

“It’s definitely been difficult in the veterinary community as a whole throughout this country,” Talbert said. “Fewer people are entering the veterinary field, whether that’s veterinarians or technicians or other people coming to animal welfare. There really is a shortage of veterinary staff. So we are very lucky here to have our staff and our veterinarian to run this spay-neuter clinic. It is designed to help people who may be struggling to access other veterinary care because of location or cost.”

In short, it’s a time of great challenge for facilities like Dakin, but also one of opportunity.

“It’s an amazing place to be,” she added. “I told people about a year ago, when I took this job, I felt like I won the job lottery. It’s been wonderful to come into an organization where I’ve been welcomed, where people want to teach about their experiences, where there’s really good communication and incredible teamwork, not only internally here, but with our partners in the region as well. It’s just an amazing place to be.”

Talbert encouraged people to get involved in the organization, either through adopting an animal, volunteering, getting involved in the foster program, or donating money, pet food, or pet supplies; information about all that is available at dakinhumane.org.

“I just want to thank the community for their support of Dakin,” she added. “We could not do the work that we do without the generosity of others, whether it’s a philanthropic gift, a supply drive, or people giving of their time. It really is what makes Dakin work.”

Noonan Energy Builds on a 135-year Tradition of Growth and Evolution

By George O'Brien November 23, 2023

Building Trades Special Coverage

It Runs Hot and Cold

Fifth-generation president Ted Noonan says the company continues to grow and diversify its products and services.

Going back nearly 135 years, Ted Noonan says, the company now known as Noonan Energy has been defined by ambition, innovation, entrepreneurship, diversification, and, perhaps most importantly, the willingness — and ability — to adapt to changing times.

And these qualities continue to describe Noonan today, he said, noting that the company started by his great-great-grandfather in 1890 as an ice-delivery venture continues to evolve and create new business opportunities.

Indeed, Noonan, which moved on from ice after the advent of refrigeration and morphed over more than a half-century into a leading provider of oil and HVAC services, has added two new divisions in recent years, electrical and plumbing services, that give it the ability to provide more services to existing and potential customers — and intriguing growth opportunities.

“We added these new divisions because there was so much synergy with our other services,” he explained. “We were constantly needing an outside plumber or an outside electrician to pull permits and do work, so we said, ‘since we’re hiring one all the time, why don’t we just bring one on and create a new division?’”

The plumbing division was added in 2011 with the hiring of master plumber Mark Gadourey, and the electrical unit was introduced in 2018 with the addition of master electrician Daniel Rollend, said Noonan, adding that both continue to grow, as do other aspects of the broad operation.

“We were constantly needing an outside plumber or an outside electrician to pull permits and do work, so we said, ‘since we’re hiring one all the time, why don’t we just bring one on and create a new division?’”

“We’ve had some nice growth in both of those divisions over the past five to 10 years, and on the service and installation side as well,” he told BusinessWest, noting that the company installs everything from oil tanks and oil burners to air-conditioning systems, heat pumps, and mini-splits, while also undertaking home-energy audits and creating comfort plans. “We have a whole host of … everything.”

As fifth-generation owner, Ted Noonan continues many traditions, if they can be called that, of the owners who came before him. Being entrepreneurial is one of them. Growing up in the business and learning all aspects of it first-hand is another — Noonan recalled riding with the delivery men in his youth and unwinding hose. And filling in, especially in a pinch, is yet another.

“I still drive today when we get really busy in the winter,” he said. “I enjoy it … I always say that it’s therapy for me; I get out of the office, I shut my phone off — or try to — and make deliveries. I’ve pretty much done every territory we handle, so if we get a couple of call-outs in the winter, I’ll step in.”

Mostly, though, he is involved in short-term and long-term planning, creating additional opportunities, and exploring new avenues for growth and expansion. He noted that a trend toward consolidation within the industry, one that has fueled the dramatic growth of this company over the past 50 years, continues, especially as the Baby Boomer owners of smaller oil-delivery and HVAC service companies move into retirement.

Ted Noonan (right) and his father, Ed, have continued traditions of innovation laid down by T.F. Noonan back in 1890.

“We’re still looking at acquisition opportunities and expansion opportunities, while also keeping an eye on what might create great synergy from a diversification standpoint,” he noted, adding that, at present, the company is focused on “shoring up” those new divisions and growing those aspects of the business.

For this issue and its focus on the building trades, BusinessWest takes an in-depth look at Noonan Energy, exploring its rich history, the continuing of a tradition of entrepreneurship, and the question of what might come next.

Freeze Frame

Flashing back more than a century to company lore that he is well-versed in and relates often, Noonan marveled at how the venture known as T.F. Ice Dealer (named for his great-great-grandfather, Timothy F. Noonan) cut huge blocks of ice from Lake Massasoit (Watershops Pond) in Springfield and, using sawdust as an insulator, kept it relatively cold all through the year for delivery to customers in the Greater Springfield area.

And he continues to be awed by the insulating properties of sawdust.

“We’re still looking at acquisition opportunities and expansion opportunities, while also keeping an eye on what might create great synergy from a diversification standpoint.”

“We have a small barn at our house, and we have sawdust for the horses,” he noted. “You’ll go two months after cold weather, and if we’re digging in the sawdust, we find snowballs. And that always brings me back to how this company started.”

While some things haven’t changed — like sawdust’s ability to keep ice cold — the Noonan company certainly has. Its history is told through a huge photo display in the lobby of the company’s offices on Robbins Road, in the shadow of a 2-million-gallon oil tank. That lobby is also home to an oil-delivery truck circa the 1930s — it was rescued several years ago, refurbished, and painted with the Noonan colors (green and white) to resemble trucks the company had on the road 80 or so years ago.

Providing a quick history lesson, Noonan said the company, while it has remained in the same family, has changed names a few times and added new products and services on a consistent basis.

The first name change came in 1911, when T.F. decided to put ‘Massosoit Lake Ice Company’ over the door and on the side of the horse-drawn wagons. He would sell the company to his son, Edward J. Noonan, in 1923. The entrepreneurial second-generation owner would add kerosene and home heating oil to the products delivered by the company, additions that would prompt a name change to Massasoit Lake Ice and Fuel Co.

Second-generation owner Edward J. Noonan inaugurated the company name Massasoit Lake Ice and Fuel Co.

By 1939, with refrigeration chipping away at the ice business, Ed Noonan diversified by opening a gasoline station at the corner of King Street and Eastern Avenue in Springfield, one that also sold paint and wallpaper, which many of those facilities did at that time.

In 1958, Ed Noonan sold the business to two of his sons, Timothy and William, who ran a company that would take the name Noonan Oil Co. Inc., a venture that would slug its way through the oil embargo in 1973 and manage to expand sales and develop new markets. Timothy would become sole owner in 1981.

“We see a bright future … it’s going to be different, certainly, than it was five, 10, or 50 years ago, but everyone is always going to need warming and cooling, and we’ll be there to provide it.”

His son, Ed, would launch his own career in the business by acquiring Palmer Coal and Oil in 1973, while his father continued to grow Noonan Oil. (The two companies were in friendly competition for several years.) Ed Noonan doubled the size of his company with the acquisition of Leonard Oil Co. of Monson in 1978 and continued to grow with other acquisitions, including Dulude Oil Inc., Palmer Oil Co., City Oil in Springfield, Marquis-Rivers in Holyoke, and Tinco Fuel in Ludlow.

He would eventually put all those brands under one name, Noonan Energy, in 1985, and in 1985, Noonan Oil Co., still owned by Ed’s father, Tim, would become part of Noonan Energy as well. In the ensuing years, many other smaller oil-delivery and service ventures would be acquired, including Better Heat Inc., Bolduc Fuel, Royal Heating, National Heating, Canary Oil, Hampshire Oil, Hillside Oil, Davis Fuel Co., Hadley Fuel Co. … the list goes on.

Ted Noonan, Ed’s son, joined the company in 1998, became its president in 2009, and was named a member of BusinessWest’s Forty Under 40 class of 2017.

Hot Takes

During his tenure, one during which Tim has remained active with the business, Ted Noonan has continued his father’s tradition of aggressive acquisition of smaller fuel-oil and service businesses.

In 2011, the company acquired the assets of Whiteley Fuel Oil Co. in Chatham; in 2011, it purchased Ray Kelley & Son of Palmer; in 2013, it acquired East Springfield Oil Co; and, most recently, it added Borsari Oil of West Springfield, Chudy Oil in Three Rivers, and Westfield Fuel to the fold.

All these acquisitions give the company something very much needed in this day and age — size, said Noonan, adding that they also give it a presence in several different markets across the region.

Indeed, the Noonan footprint, or service and delivery area, now stretches to the edge of the Berkshires to the west, several of the border communities of Connecticut to the south (penetrating further into the state is difficult, Ted said), into Franklin County to the north, and into Worcester County to the east. With that acquisition of Whiteley Fuel Oil, it also serves a dozen communities on Cape Cod. Locations in the 413 are in Springfield, Westfield, Amherst, and Palmer.

Noonan Energy is known for heating and HVAC services, but has become a player in electrical and plumbing work as well.

Beyond these acquisitions and the accompanying territorial expansion, the company has achieved additional growth though expansion of its product and service portfolio, said Noonan, adding that, in addition to the new plumbing and electrical divisions, the company also added a home-energy audit division under the leadership of his sister, Kara Noonan, in 2012.

He said these new divisions, and especially the plumbing and electrical units, were natural additions that came about as need became evident, especially as plumbers and electricians retire in large numbers, and as customers looking for those services continued to ask people from Noonan — who were delivering oil, servicing a boiler, or installing central air conditioning — if they knew a good plumber or electrician.

After years of offering referrals if it could, the company made the entrepreneurial decision to change its answer to those questions to ‘yes … that’s us; we can handle that.’

“It’s similar work to what we do, and it’s a niche we can fill,” Ted Noonan said, adding that the ability to give that answer puts the company in a position to offer a portfolio of services that few, if any, of its many competitors can match. Noonan said many still just deliver oil, while others will also handle installation and service of HVAC systems. Meanwhile, some handle plumbing and HVAC, but not electrical or oil delivery. But very few cover all those bases.

The new divisions enable the company to further diversify and better position it for a future where there will certainly be less dependency on fossil fuels, said Noonan, adding that the company is already making strides in that direction through steps such as the blending of biodiesel and traditional heating oil to create bioheat, continually increasing the blend so it is less carbon-intense.

“We see a bright future … it’s going to be different, certainly, than it was five, 10, or 50 years ago, but everyone is always going to need warming and cooling, and we’ll be there to provide it,” he said, adding that the ability to change with the times — and sometimes see around the corner and anticipate what’s coming next — has kept Noonan viable since Benjamin Harrison was patrolling the White House.

And these qualities will continue to serve it well into the future.

Hill-Engineers, Architects, Planners Marks 75 Years of Change

By Joseph Bednar November 23, 2023

Architecture Special Coverage

Something to Build On

Vice President Vinny Magnano (left) and President Jeff Noble.

Western Mass. is home to dozens of architecture firms. And engineering firms. And land-surveying companies.

Not too many can say they’re all three.

But over its 75 years in business — it celebrates that milestone early in 2024 — Hill-Engineers, Architects, Planners Inc. has evolved into a entity that can manage all those aspects of a project. And President Jeff Noble says that broad expertise sets Hill apart in its field — or, more accurately, fields. It’s also a strong buffer against shifting economic tides.

“We’re organized in three departments — architecture, engineering, and civil surveying — and it’s seldom that you get all three of those going gangbusters all at once,” Noble explained. “Sometimes we’re very fortunate, but other times, one might wane a little bit, while the other two are going well. That diversity of services has carried us along, so we’re able to sustain the level of employment and the types of services we offer. That’s been a big benefit.”

The company’s roughly 40 employees reflect that range: architects; structural, mechanical, and electrical engineers; civil engineers, land surveyors, and survey technicians; and project managers, designers, and drafters in all three niches.

For instance, “we did a brand-new facility for Standard Uniform Services. We started with the permitting, the site development, the architecture, the engineering, and designed that whole facility for them,” Noble explained, adding that it contracted with Forish Construction on the build. “That range of services has allowed us to provide all that, though it’s not always necessary that you need all those services together.”

“A lot of architectural firms are just architectural firms, and they have to go to get an engineer for structural, mechanical, electrical, civil … that’s not part of their company. In Western Mass., very few of those have combined engineering and architecture — and certainly not land surveying besides.”

Hill-Engineers, Architects, Planners was established by William T. Hill in 1949 to provide mechanical-engineering design services to the robust paper industry of the Berkshires. It has called Dalton, a small town just east of Pittsfield, its home since its opening.

“Mr. Hill was a paper-mill engineer for Crane & Co. here in town, and he evolved from there,” Noble said of the company’s founding. “He grew little by little and did structural engineering, electrical, and mechanical engineering, strictly for the pulp and paper business.”

Vice President Vin Magnano came on board in 1975, and the company’s work and client base started to expand beyond paper into a wide range of commercial and industrial clients — still primarily engineering, but moving gradually into some design work.

“Then it just started to evolve organically to include more architectural work,” Noble added. “And we had engineering here to offer as backup for an architectural project, so it made a lot of sense.”

This Berkshire Family YMCA project includes a pool, court, elevated track, and fitness room.

Magnano recalled that “when I came here — I was just a kid, in my 20s — the only architecture we did was to put up a building that covered the machinery; that’s all they cared about. But we started changing after I was here a few years.”

In 1980, a group of five employees purchased the fixed assets of the founder and changed the company’s name to Hill Engineering Inc., and the company began to expand its footprint further in the fields of architecture, engineering, and surveying. In 1986, the company’s leadership contacted Noble, who had worked there before, to head up the growing architectural group. He was intrigued by Hill’s new model.

“I said, ‘yeah, that sounds like a good opportunity,’ and it turned out it was,” he told BusinessWest, adding that, as an architect, “I always appreciated having engineering in-house. A lot of architectural firms are just architectural firms, and they have to go to get an engineer for structural, mechanical, electrical, civil … that’s not part of their company. In Western Mass., very few of those have combined engineering and architecture — and certainly not land surveying besides.”

The company name was changed again in 1987 to Hill-Engineers, Architects, Planners, Inc. to better reflect these expanded areas of service.

“We still do an awful lot just like we always have: we listen to our clients and respond to their needs. They come to us with a problem to solve, and we solve the problem, and move on to the next one.”

“We just started growing the architectural side of the business, doing more commercial work and some residential, institutional, recreational … lots of different types of projects that weren’t industrial. We added staff, and the company has grown over the years.”

Industrial Evolution

Over the decades, Hill-Engineers, Architects, Planners has performed work for dozens of the most recognizable names in Western Mass., including General Dynamics, General Electric, Berkshire Health Systems, Union Carbide, Solutia, Kanzaki, and Smith & Wesson, as well as numerous colleges and universities; several Berkshire County municipalities; recreational, religious, and commercial entities; cultural institutions like Berkshire Museum, MASS MoCA, the Clark, and Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center; and land subdivisions throughout the region.

“When the architecture started to evolve from the paper mills, it was still industrial-based, no commercial; we hardly ever did banks or colleges or any of that,” Magnano said. “It was really driven in the industrial.”

Today, the firm boasts many long-time clients in all those sectors above, some for 40 years or more, he added.

Its acquisition of West Stockbridge Enterprises became an opportunity to get into the land-surveying and civil-engineering aspect, Noble added. “It, again, broadened our range of services that we can provide to our clients, whether it was strictly a subdivision survey or supported an architectural project. Clients say, ‘hey, I want to build something,’ and they’ve got to go through all the permitting aspects, site design, maybe find a site, do site analysis. All that started to become services we could provide for our clients.”

Meanwhile, in the engineering group, Magnano said, “we still do pretty much every discipline except fire protection; we partner with a company in Albany for all our fire-protection work.”

The Weidmann Electrical Technology facility in St. Johnsbury, Vt. is among the firm’s largest projects.

The firm’s radius of work is typically about 50 miles, though it has done major projects outside that, including a major expansion of Weidmann Electrical Technology’s paper mill in St. Johnsbury, Vt., one of that region’s largest employers, a little over a decade ago — about 35 years after Hill first worked on a project for Weidmann.

“They were losing their edge in the market, in the industry; Germany and other places were building new, high-tech stuff. So they spent $40 million doing a new addition on the old addition. We did everything, right from the site work,” Magnano said. “That was probably one of the most unique jobs we’ve done, and we were literally in there from day one — about four years. That was a big one.”

Over the decades, Hill has seen a number of changes, from technology to the way projects are bid. For one thing, there are fewer long-term, local relationships with clients because of consolidation, with clients being purchased by larger entities all the time. “So your companies that used to be local are now owned by a company that’s out of Springfield, Illinois or something,” Noble said. “You don’t have the same relationship, unfortunately.”

Meanwhile, codes and regulations have become more challenging, and an emphasis on energy efficiency and sustainability has impacted how projects are designed, he added. “But we still do an awful lot just like we always have: we listen to our clients and respond to their needs. They come to us with a problem to solve, and we solve the problem, and move on to the next one.”

Welcome Mat

One negative trend that has impacted businesses of all kinds has been recruiting and retaining talent, and Noble said Hill has been able to maintain a steady staff, but it’s not always easy, especially with engineers.

“You don’t see people applying. It used to be people would come in, knock on the door, send a résumé pretty routinely. Now we can’t even solicit them. We go out and try to get them, and no responses,” he told BusinessWest, adding that Hill’s headquarters in the Berkshires can be a problem for some. “Our location just doesn’t seem to have the attraction for younger people. They’d rather go to the cities where there’s potential for maybe more glamorous or high-profile types of work.

“Students are still enlisting in engineering and architecture schools, but they don’t tend to come back here,” he added. “They go to UMass or Boston for college, but then they won’t come back to the Berkshires to work. That’s what we see as the issue.”

Still, the firm has managed to attract employees from the Pioneer Valley and the Albany, N.Y. areas, and it has also maintained relationships with trade schools to bring young people in for co-op experiences, some of which have resulted in hires over the years.

“You don’t have to necessarily get a master’s in such-and-such; you know you can come out of trade school and go to work as a computer operator here, and we’ll put you to work,” Noble explained. “You can learn on the fly, but under the tutelage of professional engineers.”

Magnano added that “we’ve been fortunate enough to get some individuals whose roots are in Dalton, or close by, and wanted to come back to Dalton. Over the last five to 10 years, we’ve really brought in another whole generation that hopefully will keep it going.”

Here, the envelope and siding go up on the NUPRO plastic-fabrication factory in South Deerfield.

Hill-Engineers, Architects, Planners has been community-minded in other ways as well, Noble said, by supporting local nonprofits, social organizations, churches, and other causes in a number of ways.

“The [Dalton] Community Recreation Association is one, whether we do our work at a reduced fee or we support them through ads in their programs, or we sponsor a basketball team or baseball team.”

The firm also supports the Pittsfield YMCA, for which it just completed a major $12 million renovation, including a pool, court, elevated track, fitness facilities, and more. Often, Hill is able to provide services to nonprofit clients at a lower cost, or in an in-kind way, he said. “It works both ways. We get good experience out of it, and the client gets the service at a more affordable level.”

The firm’s leadership and employees also sit on boards and are encouraged to volunteer in the community, Noble added.

Shovels Out

As part of its 75th-anniversary year, the team at Hill is planning to bury a time capsule that includes, among other artifacts, some tools of the trade in 2023, and then unearth it 25 years from now, at the company’s centennial, to see how much their industry — sorry, industries — have changed.

Things have certainly changed plenty since 1949.

“I think we’re just very proud of having carried on Mr. Hill’s legacy here for 75 years,” Noble said. “I think he’d be really happy to see where we’re at. And who knows? Maybe we’ll keep it going for another 75.”

Day: November 23, 2023

Dakin Humane Society Meets Rapidly Growing Needs